Here’s my April list of Ten Things.
10 Things I Consider Works of the Devil:

1. Umbrellas
2. Religion
3. Pernod
4. Halloween
5. Butternut Squash
6. Gnocci
7. Golf
8. Net Curtains
9. Muzak
10. Sweetcorn

Just to continue the personal theme here’s another post which has been gestating for a while.
Quite a few years ago, one of the weekend colour supplements ran an interview series under the title “I didn’t get where I am today without …”. Each week it asked the usual celebrity to specify up to six things that had got them where they were.
I was reminded of this recently when I happened across an odd copy of the column (undated and unsourced, which is unlike me) which I had obviously annotated with the view of turning it into a blog post. So here it is.
I didn’t get where I am today without …
1. Bohemian Parents. OK so there was a lot of covert pressure and controlling in my childhood from my somewhat dysfunctional father (which has screwed me up in many ways) — hence the sad little boy on the right. But my parents’ general bohemianism, and liberal attitudes to things like nudity and sexuality, mean I’m at ease with my body, with nudity and with sexuality. I was encouraged to learn; I was given an environment in which I could investigate anything I wanted; and in which I could develop my own ideas — even if they did clash with my father’s. All of which was made easier as I was a teenager in the swinging 1960s.
2. Religion. That might sound strange coming from someone who is such a confirmed atheist, especially as I was raised as an atheist — certainly agnostic — mainly because of my father’s rebellion against his stifling Baptist upbringing. However like everyone, I suspect, I dabbled in Christianity – joining the Roman Catholic church when a post-graduate, although I soon found it unfulfilling, and even to my mind immoral. I subsequently learnt something about many other religions and belief systems but eventually found none to be necessary and most actively destructive. But this led me to my current philosophies and becoming very much my own person, based on my own understanding of “life, the universe and everything”.
3. Technology. Technology, specifically computing technology, has been central to my working life. I learnt programming as a student, used it as a post-grad and that helped get me an entrée into the IT industry when my dreams of an academic career ran out. My father never forgave me for giving up on academe in favour of the world of commercialism and especially computer technology (of which he deeply disapproved); but to his credit he never tried very hard to dissuade me from it. So I spent almost the whole of my working life in IT — not all of it doing deeply techie stuff, but all there because of the technology. I cannot imagine what I would have spent my life doing without it.
4. Being a Research Student. Many people say that their student days were their formative years, but for me being an undergraduate was really only an extension of school. It is my post-grad days which were my formative years when I made some deep long-lasting friendships, discovered lots about everything and had the time and space to start developing my intellectual skills. And it is this ability to think and be a thorn in peoples’ side that has caused me trouble right throughout my working life. Somehow I managed to get a PhD along the way too; I still don’t know how!
These are the days I would wish to return to, if I had the ability — and I could do it all so much better now!

5. Being a Loser. I feel that I have been a loser all my life; and a loner (see again the sad little boy above). I was never a high-flyer at school and was a quiet, shy, scared kid with few friends, especially girl-friends. This continued into my student days when I had a number of conspicuous failures, most notably a long-term relationship which when it failed almost cost me my degree. This continued as a post-grad, culminating in the failure of my academic dreams, in large part due to my idleness.
Was the world of work any better? Not a lot; it too produced a number of conspicuous failures, several of which almost cost me my job – not because of major cock-ups but more by being the wrong sort of guy in the wrong place at the wrong time when things got tough; or because I “tell it like it is” and not how management would like it to be (aka. wrong attitude). And it’s trying to pull away from the wrong guy/wrong place/wrong time scenario that has led me to rise above the many negative influences of my childhood.
Although in all truth I’ve done reasonably well compared with many, all this means I feel I have not done as well as I think I should have, especially given my intellectual ability: in terms of recognition, money, personal fulfilment or impact on society. On the other hand without all those setbacks, and enforced changes of direction, I would not have got to where I am now!

The Wedding Photo, 1979.
L to R: Victor (Best Man), Maeve, Me, Noreen, Margaret, Jilly.
6. Noreen. Noreen and I have been married for almost 35 years. Over any time like that there will be many things which one wouldn’t have done without the support and encouragement of one’s partner. And we’ve been no exception; Noreen has consistently supported what I want to do and on many occasions happily joined in. Without that I would not have done much of what I have.
But Noreen’s effect on where I am now starts even before we married. When we were discussing getting married I was having to change job. I had two job offers: one in west London and the other in Winchester. But Noreen’s job — the job she had always wanted to do — was tied to London; and Winchester would have been a horrible commute. So I chose to take the London job offer rather than force Noreen to give up her cherished job (or have a long, expensive commute); and we’re still in London. Had Noreen and I not been in the throes of shackling ourselves together I likely would have taken the Winchester job — and who knows where that would have led?
There’s another thing for which I have to thank Noreen: she introduced me to Jilly, her best friend from school. Apart from the fact that I had an affair with Jilly (and who wouldn’t!) it was she who introduced me to Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time. This sustained me through recovery from glandular fever and so captivated me that, in time, my enthusiasm was translated into a major web resource and into the Anthony Powell Society; 14 years on I remain the Society’s Hon. Secretary. The AP Soc has taken me to interesting places and introduced me to many interesting people; it really has been one of the major influences on my life.
I didn’t get where I am today by being somewhere else.

We’ve got to question 4 of the Five Questions in Series 5 that I posed at the beginning of the year. (OMG, a month of the year has gone already!)

Question 4: Give me the story of your life in six words.
How about this as a fair summary:
Working class, eccentric thinker who underachieved
I didn’t get where I am today by achieving anything other than mediocrity.
OK, yes I did well academically by most people’s standards: reasonable first degree, a masters, then a doctorate (by the skin of my teeth!). But I failed dismally as the academic I wanted to be and left after a year.
I was destined to be a top consultant technician in a large IT company, but allowed myself to drift from job to job. I realised towards the end of my career that I could have achieved much more so-called success if I had put my mind to it. But I hadn’t and I realised I really didn’t want it, although I would have liked the status, the money and the pension. And that, from the outside looks like under-achievement because the early academic promise should have taken me much further than it did.
Unfortunately this just reinforced my internal mental self-portrait as a loser, an image which seems to have been instilled in me in childhood. It became an ingrained self-fulfilling prophesy. But of course it’s bollox. Intellectually I know it is.
But changing one’s internal self-image is damn hard. I’ve managed to get a long way from being a miserable, negative, “they’re all out to get me” git of a loser, as my father was, and as I was set to become. But so far I haven’t managed to shift the internal “loser” self-portrait.
No wonder I’m depressive.
Bah! Humbug!

So here I’ll give you an answer to the second of the Five Questions in Series 5 that I posed at the beginning of the month.

Question 2: Describe your fantasy girl.
Oh dear. Whatever I say I’m on a hiding to nothing here, being married (for half a lifetime) as I am! And also knowing that Mrs M will read this.
I suppose I could just hide behind the old response to this question: Come naked, bring beer”! For as Tiffany Madison says in Black and White:

It is assured that men of all ages imagine a woman naked when they first meet.

Which is not entirely true, though I’m sure for many not far from the truth.
But maybe I’d better be a bit more open, although to tell the truth I’m not at all sure I can conjure up an ideal girl. There are just so many variables and so much is down not to looks but to personality and even that simply unknown chemistry.
What sort of things to I find attractive physically?
Pale ginger hair and freckles is a good start. Blonde can be good although I’ve noticed over the years I seem to think more generally of brunettes.
Small perky breasts. Yes, really. Unlike most men (or at least what most men will tell you) I have never been one for big tits.
Average (or slightly above) height. I don’t go for very tall girls, or for very long legs — somehow they always seem to be out of proportion.
Slim figure but not thin. I hate the half-starved look.
But possibly more important is personality.
I like my girls intelligent and amusing; they need to share my warped sense of humour and be able to hold a meaningful conversation.
Sharing (at least some) interests makes things work well too.
Good in bed? Well yes, that’s good too.
And of course on top of that there is the indefinable chemistry that some how makes it work, or not. No, I don’t understand it and I don’t think anyone does.
How does this match up with Mrs M?
That, as they say, is for me to know and you to find out. So, no, I’m not going to tell you.
Ultimately the mental can (and, arguably for a successful relationship, should) outweigh physical looks and even practical skills. Besides, as I imply above, I think the whole thing is down to chemistry, which at rock bottom will overpower both the physical and the mental. Why else would we succumb to lust and the erotic? As Jean-Luc Godard allegedly observed:

Eroticism is consenting to live.